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Through educational programs and effective counseling services, the Wise Center is working to end the cycle of abuse by providing support to past and present victims of abuse and family violence.

Wise Center for Child Abuse Prevention

“ The Cycle of Abuse Ends Here"

When presented with the opportunity to share the experiences I've had with the Wise Center, I embraced it whole-heartedly! The Wise Center literally helped save my life.

I began therapy around 2001, at the age of twenty, with a long history of abuse -- emotional, physical, and sexual -- in my childhood and up through my teens. I had no idea how to cope with what I'd been through, and felt both helpless and hopeless. I'd begun self-mutilating at thirteen, and suffered anorexic tendencies that were dangerously progressing to a full-blown eating disorder. I had panic attacks on almost a daily basis, sometimes rocking and crying for hours. I had no self-respect, no self-esteem. My depression and anxiety were taking over my life.

My counselor helped me to completely re-parent myself. I learned how to express my feelings without hurting myself, and was able to develop a sense a self worth that still bears strong. I learned to alter my inner dialog, how to be compassionate with myself, and that I was not to blame for the abuse I'd suffered. There is no way I can sum up years of therapy in a few sentences, but I emerged a different person; a better person, I learned how to cope.

A few years later, when circumstances left me pregnant and alone at twenty three, I again turned to the Wise Center for counsel and support. Again, I didn't think I could make it. And I found myself so afraid that I might inadvertently perpetuate the cycle of abuse. And yet again, the Wise Center came through for me. I had someone to depend on, and learned to trust and depend on myselfI am now the proud mother of a beautiful and rambunctious four year old boy.

And I'm a good mom. The cycle ended with me.

Although the Wise Center was my strongest support system, I wasn't only helped emotionally. I had a difficult pregnancy -- violently ill through the second semester, losing weight instead of gaining, unable to stay hydrated. Working was out of the question. If not for the Wise Center, my son wouldn't have had the car-seat that he rode in when he came home from the hospital, or the swing that quieted his colic, or the highchair that he sat in as he had his first taste of baby food.

Everyone has a guardian angel -- I had the Wise Center. No one has ever touched my life as dramatically or as positively as they have. I am a better, stronger person for knowing them.

~B.W.